


06. 14. '20. 12:47am

by iirusu



Series: Where the Geese Fly and Bulls Cry [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Childhood Memories, Childhood Trauma, Crying, Hinted Dissociation, It gets very descriptive, Mentioned Dissociation, No Dialogue, Non-Consensual Touching, Non-Graphic Violence, POV First Person, Repressed Memories, Set in Colorado, Song Lyrics, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:02:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24722761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iirusu/pseuds/iirusu
Summary: We're listening to Domonique Lawalrée past midnight and finally, you tell me it's time to recall the most harrowing memories in my childhood bedroom.
Series: Where the Geese Fly and Bulls Cry [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1785916





	06. 14. '20. 12:47am

**Author's Note:**

> ⌦ Okay BIG trigger warning, there's descriptions of non-consensual touching, violence, dissociation, and childhood trauma. Please don't read if any of these upset or trigger you. ⌫
> 
> (and please read the endnote if you read this work!)

It’s late. She’s in the living room and she’s laughing out loud every minute. I lean over to turn my fan on, and oh our poor electricity bill, because since March I’ve had it on for hours at a time to drown out her voice. Her timbre is so delighted, sunny, and lovely as I remember, and I’m disgusted. You’re draped over my bed with your head hanging off the side, a heart sucker dangling from your mouth. I hear her giggle loud enough that it cuts over my fan, and I’m so pissed off that I think I want to shove the sucker down your throat and watch you choke. You tell me not to. I sink into my pillows with a heated sigh. I shouldn’t take it out on you. I know you’re upset too. 

But instead of wallowing in irritation like me, you hoist yourself up so you’re sitting fully on the bed, and lean over to type into my computer. _L’oiseau Bleu_ starts playing after a few moments. I usually would like this song but right now I’m not in the mood. I tell you to change it to our favorite Domonique Lawalrée piece, but you tell me that it sounds too much like how growing detached feels, and then I’m tugging the computer out of your hands because I’d rather be doing that than listening to a song I don’t like and hearing a voice that I hate. 

You tell me we’ll both slip if it starts playing. I fire back that I have confidence I won’t. It’s just a composition, and this is just a place. I don’t need to be thinking of the basement. But oh, there I go, now I’m thinking of the basement. You shake your head in defeat but even though I’m thinking and the song starts playing, you shift on the bed so you’re sitting next to me. We’re so close that I think I can hear your heartbeat, but that might’ve just been my own. I’m glad you’re here. 

I didn’t think I’d spiral like this, on a night I’d thought would be like all the others since March, but here we are. I can’t even cry. You tell me just to think. You can hear everything anyway- I don’t need to speak. So I think.

_We’re in the basement. I remember it was in my elementary years, and I was messing with the dolls on the obnoxiously bright carpet. She’d told me earlier that she wanted to try something in the basement, and I waited. As I was adjusting the dress on a Barbie doll I’d now fixed my attention to, I heard the half wall creak upstairs, followed by the sound of slow thumps as she walked down the steps. Turning the corner, I remember she had run her hand across the concrete wall, and I thought for a moment that her hand would be dusty. She sat down. We played. And then she turned to me, and I figured it was time for whatever she’d wanted to try. She told me to take my pants off._

I grabbed hold of you and without a word you knew it was time to change the song. On came _Aluminum._ It felt easier now that I could hold you. I’m trying to think of something else despite knowing it's time, I’m trying to think of going to the park today with a friend and talking about everything, throwing around a volleyball and wincing when it came down on our arms. I’m thinking it was fun, and it was so beautiful when the rain started coming down and we ducked into the porch, writing Japanese cards and talking while the thunderclaps circled us. I’m trying to think of it, but you’re pulling me back. It’s time to think about it, to have these hard conversations, but I’m scared. I hear her laugh again from the living room and when you flinch I remember that you are too.

_At first, her hands felt delicate, as they always had been, like a flower. But they were withering with every touch. Decaying away. They didn’t look like flowers anymore. I was scared. It felt too hot, too much, in places I loathe to think about. I hate delicacy. I hate tenderness. I hate that look, and I hate it on her more than anyone. Her mouth touched my skin and that was when I finally said I didn’t want to do this anymore. A few moments passed where I lay exposed and still, surrounded by a wilting flower. The smell was suffocating. And then, she let go. I pulled my pants back up, and we went back upstairs. We never talked about it again._

You switch back to _Please Do Not Disturb._ After thinking, I needed the tragic piano. You said you’d never thought about comparing it to a flower before, and I tell you that I’ve just come up with it, thinking it would finally be good to put a name to the subject. For a moment I worried I would ruin flowers for myself by associating them with her, but I remember that there is no flower quite like her. No flower quite as disgusting. No flower as unsightly and awful. I can go on liking flowers because I will never look at one and think it reminds me of her. I’ve never seen one wilt itself so fast. Since that day she appeared, from a distance, to be an ordinary flower for quite some time. But in March, I finally focused my eyes on it, and it was wilted- and it all came back. 

I thought I’d write this when I’m feeling more of a wet anger, but I never like coming back to old writing, so I’ll just leave it as it is. You keep _Please Do Not Disturb_ on loop and when I blink, you’re gone. I understand that it was a lot to think about at once, so I don’t make a move to pull you out for conversation again. I just think on my own for a while.

_I don’t remember what I’d said. All I knew is that unintentionally, I’d provoked her, and it had her so infuriated that within seconds I was barrelling down the hall, our shared phone in hand, and she was right behind me. With my socks and the wooden floor, I remember I had almost slipped and crashed into the front door in my desperate attempt to get away, but an extra second of securing my footing prevented it. The second felt too long. I ran into my room like a bat out of hell and slammed the door behind me, using all of my small body as a weight to hold it, because there was no lock and I knew she’d be pounding. And oh, she was. Several times in situations like these I had been scared, but never thought she could really hurt me. But here, a rare feeling crossed my gut that she could actually get into the room if I relaxed for even a moment. She was older. She was stronger._

_I texted my dad. It was hard, typing with one hand and holding the door, praying I wouldn’t drop the phone, but I was so scared of her hearing me calling. I knew she would get more enraged that I was telling on her, and so I thought better of it. It was childish and dramatic, but I thought she would kill me. I didn't want her to kill me. My dad responded to my panicked messages and said he was on his way home, and to just hold the door as much as I could because there was nothing else I could do. I said I would, and so I dropped the phone and pushed as hard as I could against the door behind me, praying that she wouldn’t get in. I don’t remember what happened after thinking that. I don’t remember if she got in or not, or what happened when my Dad got home. I just know I was wary around her for the weeks after and eventually forgot about it. I don’t remember when it came up in my mind again._

You’re still not here. My eyes are unfocused and stinging at the corners- whether that be from the bright light of my computer or the headache I feel coming on, I don’t know- but you’re still hiding. Was it really so bad? I knew it wasn’t good, but since I’m still not hearing from you I think it might be that I don’t know what happened at the end there. I sort of feel like I’ll be better off not knowing. So I won't ask you.

_I remember I was in front of the front door, with the broken lock in my hand. It kept falling off these days. And she was only a few steps down the hall, huffing like mad with what I’d said prior. I can’t recall the wording, but it was enough that I’d feared the reaction to come. I would’ve run as I did before, and in the moments we were still in the hallway, I thought of that time and it only served to make me more afraid of what would happen. But I couldn’t move. I’d only thought people could really be frozen in fear in movies, or melodramatic narratives, but it was then that I’d realized I really couldn’t move. I no longer felt daring. And when she started forward with her hand raised, I still couldn’t run. I’d just felt my skin tingling in fearful anticipation and the feeling crawled through my whole body- I didn’t know where she’d touch._

_In the next second, her hand came down on my face with such a resonant crack that for a moment I’d felt more scared of the sound than the feeling. But then the pain came, and the sensation erupted under my skin. It’s rare that I ever scream, but I remember that with a shrill shriek I told her she was crazy, and she only walked past me, slamming the door to her room behind her. I remember I stood there for a long time. When I’m that livid I don’t do anything. I can’t do anything. I breathe heavily and wait for the burning in my face to subside. It didn’t. I’d never been slapped before, and I never thought it would come down as hard as it did. I went back into my bedroom once I’d felt like I could move again. I didn’t call my parents. I remember I thought I wasn’t a child anymore, that I could handle the situation on my own, and with better responsibility once my mind had cleared. I took deep breaths and sat on the edge of my bed for a while, with my hand pressed to my cheek all the while._

_After I’d calmed down, I left my room and opened her door so I could apologize to her. I laugh at this now, because it really should have been the other way around. I was absurd for thinking I owed her anything. She nonchalantly accepted it, but not before asking me if mom had called and if that was why I was apologizing. I shook my head because mom didn’t. It was only last year when I realized that she must have called our mom and twisted the story._

It’s the next day and the afternoon now, and you’ve finally come out again. The last one wasn’t as hard to talk about like the others, and I’m asking you why that is. You don’t know. I don’t either, and I’m not in a mood for thinking, so I don’t try analyzing it further. Tangled in Ropes comes on, and we both laugh almost in sync at how well the lyrics seem to fit with our memories. 

> _And mixing your drinks with holy water_
> 
> _Won't cover up sins that are bound to follow_

I laugh harder now when I read the rest, and it’s a dry chuckle. It reminds me of a month ago, where I'd tried sleeping on the bathroom floor but couldn’t stop laughing wistfully with the mantra in my head that _I could never win as long as she and I both lived here._ My hot tears warmed my face against the cool tile and I curled in on myself so tightly that I'd felt like I was compressing my own bones. I felt all day that I was too close to her, too close to everything in the world, but in the bathroom with a lock, curled on the floor, I found it easy to detach myself. I think for a moment that it might have been more recent, but I can’t be sure. I’d never been good at tracking time. 

You pull me out of thinking about that, though. We’re just in my bedroom, and we’re just listening to music. You’re looking through my work and I can tell you feel uncomfortable with how everything is described, but it’s how I felt I wanted to do it this time. I know it sounds sad. I know it sounds hopeless. I know it sounds angry and hurtful and like everything is coming down on me, but I put my hand over yours and I tell you that it isn’t. I am just getting it down. 

I still feel phantom touches and irritation at her voice and tears brimming when I feel like I can’t win, but I know it won’t be long. It won’t be long before she’s out of here, and before I can find the right time to tell those I dread telling now. I know people worry and so they let me confide, they give me resources to deal with the problem now, but I want to do this on my own terms. You tell me you know. I hadn’t even realized you were listening. You laugh and tell me I was rambling as you usually do, and I can’t help but bathe in the mirth too. It feels like we’re more like friends today, and so I think to myself that today I feel a little invincible.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I've found that writing down everything has made me feel better. I've got friends and people around me who I'm comfortable with and who know, so I'm not depressed or in any danger. I just want to write down everything. This is a collection where I can just write what I remember, what I think, and what I feel- and it's been a good outlet for me. I have lighter works coming since this was some of the darkest of it, so look out for that!
> 
> Here are the songs I mentioned in this work:
> 
> Please Do Not Disturb - Domonique Lawalrée  
> [https://open.spotify.com/track/3hzF6lnQo1XGnrgqpNd62p?si=AFu5sfyHT1it7urDQ0TkKw]
> 
> L’oiseau Bleu for 6 clarinets - Anthony Girard  
> [https://open.spotify.com/track/0CfXRJruNeLbtDNSwYpzHi?si=IDNRLJFSRrSVRqc2ggjoDQ]
> 
> ALUMINUM - ROTH BART BARON  
> [https://open.spotify.com/track/2lppcb1rLcv3pdXO9EEB2S?si=y8s32ZzQQ-WxxHnn36ySvw]
> 
> Tangled in Ropes - Holy Locust  
> [https://open.spotify.com/track/78IKSH3rgDaL8GyXV06OKP?si=ytrZ7ONARJKpNcgnx5rYRg]


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